Now share content from live events under the explore tab on Instagram

Okay, so Instagram’s “explore” tab has the potential to be so much more. The company has been slowly working away to realize its true potential and in what is a major move along the direction, is updating the tab with a way to share information and videos on your favorite sporting event or music concerts. That too, in real time! How cool is that?

The “Explore” tab is basically a place where all the stuff Instagram thinks is likely to be liked by you, goes. The process of making this choice can be manual or it can be performed by insanely complicated lines of codes, or algorithms. The tab was just another attempt by the company to keep people hooked and later, led to 20 custom channels being put in there based upon the kind of content the company thought you may like.

Predictably though, most of the content place inside Explore was pretty stale by the time it got there. After all, you can hardly expect the algorithms to work their way past deciding what you like and then place it in your feed as well. Which was kind of not cool, since on the web, the newer a news article is, the hotter its likelier to be. Well, Instagram has worked out a novel fix for the the situation. Enter “Events“.

As the name signifies, the all new video channel within the Explore tab will cover and consist of content coming in hot from, you guessed it, events. Depending upon the kind of stuff YOU like, the feed will be personalized and will feature videos from concerts, sports games, and other live events from across the world! The idea is pretty simple and there are no limits really upon what can actually classify as an event. Enough people interested in watching Trump and Clinton throw tomatoes at each other — that can classify as an event and can by all rights, be put under the Events thread on Instagram.

The possibilities are huge. A fan may be watching a less-publicized-about Akon concert in any backwater city and voila! Suddenly the whole world knows about it and Akon fans everywhere else can watch it as well. The potential for disruption and the consequently huge levels of Instagram activity is certainly present. Snapchat already has something somewhat similar in its “Discover Channels” but again, that’s no reason why others shouldn’t have it as well. In short, one of Instagram’s better strategic maneuverer towards boosting traffic on its platform.

The feature is launching in the US as of today and users can expect a global roll-out soon as well. Way to go Instagram!